lol I find it funny, as he's actually played BETTER since Nash has been gone. I think Nash tried WAY too hard to force the ball into him on the pick and roll and all that crap. Gortat doesn't need the pick and roll that to be effective on offense. He just needs to watch for offensive boards the majority of the time. And if another player draws a double team and Gortat's man has to leave him, they will find him open and feed it into him for easy buckets in the paint. This ALREADY seems like it's happening a lot more this year due to Nash not needing the ball in his hands on every single play. And besides, he has some solid post moves and a nice finesse hook shot + short range jumper. He's not terrible at backing other centers down and creating his own shot.

But tbqh, the overall passing and ballsharing of the team has improved tenfold, despite the "best passer of all time" not being on the team anymore. I notice a bigger variety of players getting assists and moving around, feeding each other the ball from different parts of the court, where when Nash was on the team the players would often just be standing around waiting for Nash to feed the ball to them.

And last season(especially late in games) Nash would often just dribble the ball at the top of the key and have his teammates standing around completely stagnant until there would be like 6 seconds left on the shot clock, and THEN he would finally run a play and have the whole team scrambling for the ball. It just looked like a complete mess. So many turnovers and chucking up bad shots with a split second left on the shot clock. I'm so glad that part of our offense is gone.

Maybe relying on Nash having the ball in his hands every single play wasn't as beneficial to our offense as we thought it was the past few years(especially since Gentry became coach). I'm just not missing him anywhere near as much as I thought I would be. It almost seems beneficial for the team to have him finally gone, as weird as it is to say.

well it was against the youngest team in the game where Kyrie and CJ are coming off food poisoning and Dion (who had a great game) had to get x-rayed after the game. But a good sign for suns fans nonetheless, they didn't lay down and die, they fought to the end. Gortat's play doesn't surprise me, I was a fan of his in his orlando days. Props for the W.

Maybe relying on Nash having the ball in his hands every single play wasn't as beneficial to our offense as we thought it was the past few years(especially since Gentry became coach). I'm just not missing him anywhere near as much as I thought I would be. It almost seems beneficial for the team to have him finally gone, as weird as it is to say.

Credit goes to dragic for picking delivering. He isnt putting up insane numbers or anything but he is doing his job. How good does it feel to not worry about opposing PGs torching us every game? His defense is so refreshing.

Also impressed by tucker reminds me of dudley when he first came to the suns with the insane hustle and defense.

Gortat is playing to prove the haters wrong and I am kind of loving it. Scola has been solid too but thats not surprising.

What is surprising is how good shannon was these last two games and how bad dudley has been.

he really took it to kyrie defensively, and it got to him. early in the third, kyrie got called for a charge, pm a 50-50 call, that would have been an and1, then dragic started to really pressure him, and it got to kyrie. he got really aggressive, and for a good few minutes he scored or assisted on almost all of our baskets. he is usually a very controlled guy, but dragic really seemed to get under his skin

it was fun to watch, two guys really going at it

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derivative

i missed the fourth quarter. where was irving in the fourth? looks like he didn't score a single point in that quarter

dion had it going in the 4th, and scott had him initiate the offense instead of irving

EDIT: also, telfair managing to run out like 5-10 seconds off the clock, when we were trying to foul, was the most frustrating moment of the season so far.

PJ Tucker has been a really pleasant surprise. He's undersized but a load in the paint and always seems to make impact plays. He's not a great shooter but an excellent cutter and solid defender who can guard multiple positions.

Dragic and Gortat were great as well. I thought the dragon got the better of Irving.

For the Cavs, it has to build confidence seeing the way Waiters has played the last few games.

What is surprising is how good shannon was these last two games and how bad dudley has been.

What I wish was surprising, but really isn't considering our track record when it comes to drafting players(and developing them), is how terrible Markieff Morris looks. Just another first round bust to add to the Suns list. -_- I had high hopes for him at the beginning of last year too. But he's not looking like he's going to be relevant at any point in his career. Inconsistent bench player that can put up a decent line every once in a while.

I guess he's a step up from Earl Clark and Alando Tucker? lol That's definitely looking on the bright side...

But I mean... holy sh*t did he look terrible last night. Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Yet Gentry left him in the game for 24 minutes and allowed him to go what... 0 of 9 from the field?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? lmao Wow... That's inexcusable.

What I wish was surprising, but really isn't considering our track record when it comes to drafting players(and developing them), is how terrible Markieff Morris looks. Just another first round bust to add to the Suns list. -_- I had high hopes for him at the beginning of last year too. But he's not looking like he's going to be relevant at any point in his career. Inconsistent bench player that can put up a decent line every once in a while.

I guess he's a step up from Earl Clark and Alando Tucker? lol That's definitely looking on the bright side...

But I mean... holy sh*t did he look terrible last night. Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Yet Gentry left him in the game for 24 minutes and allowed him to go what... 0 of 9 from the field?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? lmao Wow... That's inexcusable.

yea give all his minutes to scola and beasley at this point give more minutes to tucker at the sg and dudley at sf. He could be in a sophomore slump or he could just have regressed since his rookie year. Either way I agree with you its both disappointing and inexcusable

Anyone else watch this game? That was crazy! The Cavs were on FIRE early on, but the Suns hung in there and didn't give up, slowly but surely chipping away at the lead little by little and eventually stealing the game right at the end. Proud of this team... there's quite a few new faces on the roster, a lot of young guys who haven't played with each other before(and no star players either), and yet they manage to come together when they're struggling and pull off a comeback like this so early in the season. That's a good sign for the future.

Also some REAL TALK, why the hell does everyone think Shannon Brown sucks so much? He's been an amazing pick up for the Suns even since we signed him and started giving him more minutes last year. It seems like the more minutes we give him, the better he plays. He's been surprisingly clutch for us. He has elite-level athleticism. He's been one of our most consistent scorers when we're down need someone to step up and make shots. He's one of the hardest working guys on the team. He comes off the bench behind Jared Dudley(despite Dudley playing like sh1t this year), yet he accepts this role, doesn't complain, and still hustles and produces like a starter the best he can. And to top this all off, the Suns have him for dirt cheap (2 years/7 million).

So why does he have such a bad reputation? I was so glad we just re-signed him for a cheap, short term contract instead of giving someone like Mayo $10mil a year(which is what he reportedly tried to get from us) for similar production levels.

Nice, hope you enjoyed it.

I'm surprised some bozo's didn't come in here and say that this isn't impressive since it happens every day as someone said about Minny's 22 point come back against the Nets.